Oddly, the band opened with a song I hadn’t heard before. A slight letdown, but I was still riding the wave of energy and excitement that got me there. After that, they played another unfamiliar, slightly disappointing song. Uh oh: My buzz was starting to take a hit. Then another. With each unfamiliar, slightly disappointing song, I could feel my wave slowly dissipating, until it hit me kinda hard: They’re not gonna play any classics! This is one of those damned, fucking Here’s-our-New-Album tours, Like It or Lump It. Shit fuck hell damn!
How dare they deprive me of the profound experience of reminiscence I paid to have! And it wasn’t just me: The tension in the stadium felt thick. I could tell that many other people were equally disappointed, but trying to behave as if otherwise. I’m not sure how many—maybe even a majority, but I could feel it, regardless. It was salient as people started sitting down way too early. The crowd had noticeably (granted, not dramatically) thinned before the show was over. It was truly dull, and at least a bit depressing.
Afterwards, wiping the remnants of our beer/pot buzzes away at a nearby Taco Cabana before we hit the road again, I took the floor. I was nervous but my irritation egged me on, so that I emphatically proclaimed this was “the biggest disappointment of my adult life.” Sure, I was using hyperbole to make a point, but the show really did suck. This was bad, and I wanted to be the one to admit it, goddamnit.
The reaction of my friends was palpable. They had seemed disappointed before, too, but no one had said so aloud. After my proclamation, everyone seemed to shift from private disappointment to a more overt, public depression, joining me. No one repeated my hyperbole, but neither did anyone contest it, at least not convincingly.
And then I felt bad. Should I have kept my mouth shut? I felt like they felt worse after I spoke, because by doing so it somehow let them see through their defenses and realize that the show was indeed lame. (The psychological principle of cognitive dissonance predicts that the more money one spends on his Iron Maiden ticket, the more difficult it becomes to admit he didn’t like the show—ours were $50 each!) Had I not said what I did, each would have been much less in touch with the depressing reality.
Roman later confessed that another friend of ours, Jennifer, had actually warned him earlier that the show sucked; she had been to opening night just twenty-four hours before in Dallas. He hadn’t wanted to say anything, afraid it might ruin the show for us. On the contrary, now I was irritated at him for not warning me.
No, I don’t think we must tell the truth always. Trust me, I have a few secrets about myself, family, and friends that I would never offer, and would refuse to disclose even if confronted directly. Aside from secrets per se, I’ve simply had ill feelings at times towards some of my loved ones that I’d rather them never know about. And, for some reason that I don’t fully understand, I feel it’s relatively appropriate to lie to children sometimes. Helping a kid cope with and learn about death via “doggie heaven” and the like doesn’t necessarily feel like a sin to me. I can’t guarantee that I’ll use doggie heaven myself if I ever have kids, but I certainly see the value in not risking overloading children with the brutal truth, lest we traumatize them. I’m just not so sure about adults. Perhaps facing the brutal truth is part of growing up. Freud thought so (I’m saving his quote on the topic for later.)
Back on the original hand, I kinda wonder how high the risk is—we haven’t tested being honest with kids very much. However, in the wonderfully engaging documentary The Nature of Existence, Roger Nygard interviews some kid, Chloe, who has apparently been raised atheistic by her parents.9 At least she has been permitted atheism by them. She looks about twelve or thirteen years old at the time of the interview, but her poise and confidence are almost unsettling. She definitely does not seem traumatized or deranged. If anything, she’s a little cocky about her position, just like so many grown-up atheists. She asserts with an almost-devious smile, all the more peculiar because there are braces in it, “There is no afterlife … there’s no heaven, no hell—you die. Boom! Dead.” Later in the program she adds, with precocious wisdom, “I think truth is what we’re all really searching for, isn’t it? Even though sometimes it’s more fun to search for it than actually find it.” Amen, you little brat.
Austrian philosopher Kurt Baier may have argued that there’s less risk in raising a kid atheist than Christian. It seems there’s less to lose if the kid grows up atheist, because she can always convert to Christianity later. On the other hand, once raised a believer,
when the implications of the scientific world picture begin to sink in, when we come to have doubts about the existence of God and another life, we are bitterly disappointed. For if there is no afterlife, then all we are left is our earthly life which we have come to regard as a necessary evil, the painful fee of admission to the land of eternal bliss.10
I hope by now you’re asking yourself what you would prefer in each of the instances above, and others like them. Many such scenarios are worth contemplating from both sides, you as the one telling the lie and you as the one being deceived.
Is it acceptable to be a party pooper and tell your friends when you had a terrible time at the show you’ve fantasized about for decades? Alternatively, are you willing to hear your friend declare he had a terrible time? Would you mind taking a pill that works, even if it’s not really a medication? Could you prescribe one, if you were a doctor? Would you lie to your roommate so that he could come to believe that he did not accidentally kill his cat after a keg party? Would you want to be deceived if you accidentally killed your cat? Do you need to know if your lover is cheating on you? Could you cheat? If a loved one recently passed, and suffered a great deal while doing so, would you rather know how it happened, or be lied to about it? Again, if you were a doctor, could you lie about it? And most importantly, at your execution, would you rather understand what’s about to transpire, or instead believe that you’re the Pope who’s the one controlling the switch?
Most of my respective preferences are pretty obvious for me. I have few regrets about disparaging the Iron Maiden show, although I have to admit that the experience didn’t feel good or bring us together. I could have faked it, and I bet everyone would have bought in and the ensuing mood would have been different. But it would have been fictitious. A false representation of reality, which feels somehow unacceptable—bordering on obscene—to me.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure at the time if telling Roman about the cat was the right thing to do, but now, having done it, it feels right. Wake up—this is important! While writing this book, I asked him about the experience, twenty years later, and he told me that he did indeed want to know the truth, that he asked me in the first place because he thought I’d tell it. If you’re reading between the lines (you better be!), you’d be correct to suspect that this whole experience ultimately brought us together, rather than pushed us apart. My guess is that the truth has the capacity to bring people together like this much more than telling lies does. And even if that’s not always the case, even if lies are just as good sometimes or even better, I still feel like lies are wrong, almost always.
Now, Elvis Presley, you were one of the first celebrities I ever adored, but screw you: I would be destroyed to find out that I had been engaged in romance under false pretenses. No thanks; I don’t want any part of that. I don’t even want my girlfriend to lie to me when I ask her, “How are you doing?” If your day sucks, it’s okay to tell me. And that doesn’t just go for girlfriends; it goes for regular friends as well and even strangers, if they’re up to it. Let me see your reality, so I can know and try to say something kind accordingly, instead of tricking me into disregarding it via small-talk. Of course, it’s your prerogative, but at least be aware that you don’t have to hold back on my account.
And Doctor, I don’t want you to lie to me, either. It hurts to think of my loved ones suffering, but I’d rather know the truth. Sure, you can spare me the gory details, but don’t make up shit out of concern for my feelings. This i
s not about me. If you feel it’s important to cater to me at this time, realize that I believe it’s more respectful to the deceased and his or her dying experience if I comprehend the reality of how it transpired. And not only do I need to know how it happened, I need to know why it happened. If it was a drug overdose, I need to know if it was accidental or intentional. This helps me construct the reality and respond appropriately, which I believe honors that dead person’s experience, regardless of how brutal the reality is.
Curiously, for me, the most ambiguous of the scenarios we’ve been discussing is the placebo. No, I couldn’t lie to a patient about it, out of respect for her autonomy, but I don’t think I’d be too upset to learn that a doctor had lied to me about it. It’s interesting to contemplate how this latter situation may be different from the others. At first glance, it seems to be the least emotionally laden of the scenarios. There’s less, if any, emotional betrayal when given a placebo. In each of the other instances we’ve discussed, the lie prevents the deceived person from experiencing the appropriate emotions that are due to the cosmos.
* * *
1 Brad Pitt’s character Detective David Mills in the movie Seven. The quote is from a draft of the script by Andrew Walker dated August 8, 1994 as retrieved from http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/seven_production.html. In the actual movie, Mills imagines it’s the killer’s “grandma’s” panties, but he doesn’t mention the show tunes. I would have gone with grandma’s as well, but kept the show tunes. The movie citation is Kopelson, A., Carlyle, P. (Producers), & Fincher, D. (Director). (1995). Seven [Motion picture]. U.S.: New Line Cinema.
2 These perspectives on profiling are from the textbook I use in my class: Fulero, S. & Wrightsman, L. (2009). Forensic psychology (3rd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Other forensic psych texts that I’ve perused share similar sentiments.
3 Adapted from the following: Two separate stories from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune by White, D. (1984, July 21), “Decade of uncertainty darkens case of Alvin Ford: Former Palmetto man waits on death row” and “Slain officer’s memory is inspiration to department”; also, Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399 (1986). I found the newspaper articles via Google News.
4 In my practice, I observe that imprisonment is indeed one of the more common predisposing events to psychosis. Solitary confinement and/or rape while there seem to raise the probability of the illness emerging, from which some inmates never recover. After you’ve met enough of these patients, you really start to feel that our prison system is inherently cruel and unusual, at least for some inmates.
5 Kaufmann, W. (Ed.). (2004). Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre (p. 292). New York: Plume.
6 Ulin, D. (2011, December 17). Christopher Hitchens’ first loyalty was to the truth. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/17/entertainment/la-et-1217-christopher-hitchens-20111217
7 Associated Press. (2011, April 1). German medical group pushes placebos. Globe Newspaper Company. Retrieved from http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2011/04/01/german_medical_group_pushes_placebos/
8 Turk, R. & Handman, L. (1926). Are you lonesome tonight? [Recorded by E. Presley]. [Vinyl record single]. New York: RCA Victor. (1960).
9 Nygard, R., Tarantino, P. (Producers), & Nygard, R. (Director). (2010). The nature of existence. U.S.: Walking Shadows.
10 Baier, K. (2008). The meaning of life. In E. D. Klemke & S. M. Cahn (Eds.), The meaning of life: A reader (3rd ed., p. 106). New York: Oxford University Press.
CHAPTER 2
Fear Itself
There is no terror in a bang, only in anticipation of it.
— Alfred Hitchcock
BACK IN THE FALL OF 1990, I was still living at home with my parents at the getting-too-old-for-this age of twenty. One Sunday evening, after an extraordinary road-trip bender the likes of something out of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, I retired to my room to watch TV so that I could detox and start dreading work in the morning. “Retiring” at the time meant watching Operation Desert Storm, while my parents did the same in the living room.
I can still remember lying on my bed watching Patriot missiles and M-1 tanks and night-goggle vision and all, which aroused one of my peculiar old childhood fears: being drafted. The anxiety of the thought forced me into the present moment, as anxiety can do, so that my senses seemed to become a bit more acute and I became a little too conscious of my body. My heart felt gross inside my chest, all full of blood and squeezing according to some biological hocus-pocus that I didn’t understand. The thought of being so out of control of the process made me feel vulnerable, unsure of why my heart must necessarily keep beating.
The human circulatory system is too complicated; there are so many places where something can go wrong. Things can clog and electrical signals can get out of whack. Some hearts just stop beating altogether. What does it feel like when the heart fails? Does it feel differently depending on how it fails? Why am I thinking like this? Perhaps my brain knows my heart is about to stop, and these are the last thoughts of a dying man. As my anxiety spiraled out of control, the beat became even more salient, and harder and faster. More biological and out of my control. I panicked.
Suddenly and viciously, I was completely certain that I was going to collapse and die. Equally certain was that I wasn’t going to die, but that I was losing my mind. Regardless of what was happening—and despite this being the first time for it to transpire—there was an eerie feeling of familiarity, as if this had always been a part of me, my destiny, and that it would always be like this, for whatever eternity is for me. It was so surreal: Perhaps I had already died, and this was my hell?
I formulated an unfathomable goal, to just stand up and get to the living room where my parents were so they could help me, just in case I wasn’t actually dead yet. Every movement I made was done with utter terror, as if my continued existence somehow depended on every thought and muscle contraction. I’ve never felt so much “in the moment.” But this wasn’t Zen or Nirvana; it was the opposite, a quintessential suffering of cosmic proportions. Transcendent, but hellish.
Miraculously, I made it to the living room, in a daze, and announced to my parents bluntly, “Something’s wrong with me.” The words came out surprisingly calmly, given the horror I was feeling inside. The rest is a bit of a blur. I recall my mother acting strangely and seeming upset herself. Did she leave the room? Months later, if not years, she would finally tell me that my announcement made her have a panic attack, because she knew right away what was happening and what was in store for me. That was the first time I ever learned of my mother’s panic disorder. Since then, I’ve always supposed that she panicked that night because a great fear of hers had been confirmed, that she had some role in passing panic to me. Even if true, I don’t hold any sort of grudge. My mother was a sweet lady but just wasn’t comfortable expressing it.
She also told me later that she gave me one of her Valiums but I honestly don’t remember that. What I do remember, however, is sitting on the couch while my parents continued to watch Desert Storm (or was it just my dad?), afraid to be alone in the event I went crazy again or died again and needed help. Inexplicably, I did calm down on the couch, even became sleepy, and eventually went to bed. Now that I think about it, I must have taken something. I calmed down too well, given what had transpired.
I went to work the next day at my cubicle, cheap-tie office job at the Blockbuster Video distribution center, feeling almost normal, but also with this strange sense that an ominous seal had been broken. Sure enough, that night, Monday, it happened again—same Bat Time, same Bat Channel. And it happened again Tuesday evening as well. I went to the doctor on Wednesday, and got some Valium of my own, my first real prescription ever. But oh, there would be more. So many more.
I was to take 5-10 milligrams every four hours, which I did. It worked pretty well; although it made me a little groggy, it dramatically reduced the number of panic attacks I was having. I still had a few, but they were
different, truncated, like if you took a 10-minute panic and compressed it into 30 seconds. I’d be totally incapacitated but it would pass so quickly that no one could tell. I remember it happening one time while I was driving. As far as I know, I didn’t swerve or anything but I remember feeling like it had been dangerous. Anyway, regardless of how much the Valium did help overall, the doctor told me I couldn’t take it for more than a month because of its addictive potential.
My doctor, a general practitioner I picked somewhat randomly from my insurance referral list, was ultimately not qualified to handle my case. After my month of Valium vacation, he had me come in to discuss the next phase of my treatment. He mentioned that he had just returned from some conference on bipolar disorder, and he quizzed me regarding the symptoms that he had apparently just learned about:
“Do your thoughts race sometimes?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess … especially when I’m panicking.”
“Are you moody?”
“Hell yeah, Doc—-that’s the story of my life! I’m kinda down a lot, but sometimes I just feel great, for no reason, out of the blue.”
And that’s all it took: I was now a bipolar patient! I actually remember feeling somewhat soothed being diagnosed as manic depressive, because my education up to that point (comprised of a couple of community college general psychology courses and Jimi Hendrix’s song on the topic) had taught me that it was a serious condition, and my condition definitely felt serious. I felt validated, and assured that I’d be receiving significant attention as a result. Alas, over the years, after much more education, including face-to-face interaction with real bipolar patients, I’d learn he was so incredibly wrong and that bipolar disorder is commonly misdiagnosed as such by armies of unqualified professionals like him.1
The punchline about my doctor is that not only did he misdiagnose me, but he also gave me the wrong medication for my misdiagnosed condition! I got Mellaril—an old antipsychotic medication for schizophrenia. It’s not really for bipolar disorder. Which I never had.
Optimistic Nihilism Page 3